Why Do So Many On The Spectrum Not Drink Alcohol?

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I do not like the taste of most alcoholic beverages including beer, wines, etc. However, I do like Seagrams flavored drinks and pina coladas. But I do not desire to drink them often. I may go a year or more without drinking an alcoholic beverage.

Im a yorkshireman, i grew up drinking a LOT of alcohol. However as ive got older, i just find other things to be more important. i still have a drink of tatratea, or whiskey every so often. But i havent been to the pub in a long time. I rarely buy alcohol in. Although every time family come to the UK they always bring more alcohol for me. I dont know why lol
Even when i drank a lot of alcohol i rarely got so drunk i wasnt in control, in fact i can only think of a couple of times that happened in my entire life. The one problem with being able to hold your drink is that you end up being the one who has to carry friends home and put them to bed, EVERY TIME

I must be unusual here as I have always liked alcohol and still do, although with age I find myself wanting it less often, and less of it.

When I was 16 I somehow happened to find myself at a high school party (the kind from which I was usually excluded) and there was alcohol, and I got drunk, and found myself having positive feelings toward all the other people there (which I'll assume weren't reciprocated in the slightest) and from that time on, most of my socializing involved alcohol. In contrast, I very seldom used cannabis and didn't get the same effect from it.

It was something of an adjustment for me, when I got into my 30s and had kids, and it was no longer thought normal to have more than perhaps one alcoholic drink (if any) at social gatherings, and I found I did not function well at those. The experience I described at age 16 notwithstanding, I did become fairly capable of participating in drinking parties on an equal basis with others, especially as a university student.

In particular, I was especially attracted to the pub culture in the UK in the early 70s, especially as how non-judgmental people there seemed to be regarding drinking for its own sake.

i could go into greater detail, but I think you get the idea. Like I said, I don't drink as much as I used to, but I don't plan on giving it up until I absolutely have to, and I don't seem to have suffered any significant medical consequences as a result.

I have ASD Level 1, and I drink beer every day. I work hard every day, with lots of physical exertion, then I come home and drink beer, which feels like a reward for having worked hard. It's a "work hard, then play hard" mentality, but not the boisterous gregarious NT-type you'd see on a stereotypical beer commercial, where all the burly construction workers get off work and drink Budweiser together down at the bar on the corner. For me, I just quietly get my work done, then quietly come home to enjoy drinking beer, sometimes while also doing other things, like working in my garden, listening to music, or anything else I may want to enjoy. I also like the occasional "going out" with my wife to get lunch or dinner, and having 2 or 3 drinks with a meal there, but I don't like to be out for long, as I get tired of being in a loud place, and also because I want us to get home safe.

Drinking is part of my daily routine, and I don't feel bad about it. It seems to calm the rough edges I might get from the workday or the drive home, and makes me ever so less likely to have a meltdown the rest of the day. On average, I'll probably drink 4 to 6 beers each day after work, and on non-workdays, maybe as many as 10. I once had 19 beers in one day, but yeah, I'm never doing that again

I enjoy the occasional peaty single-malt whisky too, like Talisker or Laphroaig, but any other hard liquor is of no real interest to me. Wine can taste very good, but I never crave it.

I can't stand the taste and I have never gotten drunk because it's too strong for me.

if i drank that many containers of any kind of liquid, my kidneys would go on strike and my bladder would bust.

Instead of alcohol I'll eat ice cream or candy while I'm cooking dinner. This week I'm also making cookies when I bake meals.

I am on the spectrum and I drink. I think that as a central nervous system depressant, alcohol helps me when I'm on the verge of a meltdown. A shot of vodka or whiskey and 10 minutes later I can feel the tension leaving my body. It also helps in social situations with anxiety. Unfortunately, the tipping point between relaxed and drunk is very quick for me so I've ended up drunk without really want to be.

Now that I'm getting older (50), I'm finding that alscohol and I don't get along as well as we used to. I've heard this is a common thing with aging. I drink less and am seeking out other coping methods. I recently found that lying UNDER my large beanbag chair when I'm overstimulated works even better than my weighted blanket! Yay!

PS this is my first comment on this site.

I am hypersensitive to how alcohol tastes. Plus, my older brother and the rednecks in my area ruined my perception of it. The bars were also sickeningly smoky, very loud, burning hot, and the jerks in them didn’t set me up with any women nor did the women at the bars looked my way.

I do hate the social isolation not drinking has caused me to go through. My grandparents told me drinking was “bad” but my older brother got all the social action while I was stuck at home.

I'm Aspie/bipolar and I drink quite often, although I'm not an alcoholic. I think a lot of autistic people are really into rules and laws and might see alcohol as being against the rules.

^^^^hiya Rapplepop welcome to our club

For me, there are two main reasons why I don't drink. The first is religious. I'm a Latter-Day Saint (Mormon), and drinking booze is against the Word of Wisdom. Think of it like the Jewish dietary laws, but replace the pork and shellfish with booze, tea, coffee, and tobacco. The second is because I have an addictive personality which is no doubt worsened by autism. I'm already addicted to sugar/soda and the internet, and I'm also becoming hooked on online shopping. There are two instances in which I was unwittingly exposed to alcohol, and I didn't like it. I never want to willingly drink a palatable alcoholic drink even if I were to denounce my religion. I KNOW I'd become an alcoholic.

if i wasn't allergic to the stuff i would long ago have been fowned drowned in a big glass of the stuff.